Perspective

“We asked, ‘How much are you willing to absorb on your utility bill to support achieving net zero?’ They said 9% per year. We backed 9% into investment needed over time, and that 2050 net-zero goalpost gets moved to 2085, illustrating the tension between net zero by 2050 and customer affordability.”

“Our primary goal was continuity for our customers as we went live. Going from a twenty-plus-year-old system to a modern system, requires moving data. That typically requires taking systems offline, which would’ve impacted customers.”

“Market-driven innovation must happen at the edge of the grid. A feat achieved by FERC Order No. 1920, which was unveiled in early May. The first objective of FERC Order No. 1920 is to improve the planning process by adding long-term term planning to existing processes.”

“Instituting a robust Integrated Distribution System Planning process is a critical step in advancing more comprehensive planning processes that include a holistic assessment of resource requirements and grid modernization strategies across multiple jurisdictions and parts of the electric system.”

“We designed, tested, and deployed new settings with greater sensitivity and faster response times to minimize the likelihood of a sustained ignition when a fault occurred. The solution was quickly deployed and operationalized across our high-fire-threat district.”

“We have identified which system structures and components could be impacted by climate change. We’ve gone a step further to assess them against the design margins to understand what we need to focus on and plan for in the next 30 or more years. The product is a first-of-a-kind assessment that could be used for any nuclear power plant.”

“It’s exciting to see customers who could not afford full facility, backup generation, in particular some nursing homes and medical facilities that may have only had backup generation for certain emergency pieces of equipment, now can operate during a major disaster.”

“It’s emulators or simulators that enable us to deploy some tactics, techniques, and procedures that adversaries use. It emulates that in terms of how far it could have gone, where would it have been stopped, where would we have observed it, where would we have been able to stop it, even if manually, but time to detection is the primary focus.”

“In terms of energy consumption, I’m one of the largest customers in the U.S. I would like utilities to think of me as a partner in business, because I have several special authorities given by Congress that allow me to utilize my resources to help deliver these results, but in a business-like way.”

“With the right policy and market development framework in place, regulators have an opportunity to accelerate the deployment of VPPs, improve grid reliability, reduce rate pressure on consumers, and make progress on decarbonization.”